I recently came across a reel by @taybeepboop which I agreed the fuck out of! It summarised that when she was a child, being struck by fully grown adults OWNING their own house, and instead of filling it with bright colours, fireman’s poles, and swings, they all just do them up the same safe and boring way as everyone else. Its that thought that eventually led me to become and interior designer. And I never let go of this way of thinking, but I remain continually shocked (and perhaps a bit disappointed) that the safe dull way is still the default. I mean, out of everything that’s available out there, you just happen to love a slick angular minimal kitchen, cream carpets and a ‘live, laugh, love sign’?! I’m sure there are people out there that genuinely do, but c’mon! There can’t be that many.
The real argument here is not a fireman’s pole versus stairs, or beige versus a rainbow of colours, but rather; whether our décor and therefore our taste is genuinely ours. As I touched on in a previous blog; we don’t decorate our children’s rooms like this, so why our own. We instinctively accept that children need colour, stimulation, play and things that provoke curiosity. Then, at some mysterious point, apparently all of that becomes unbecoming of a serious adult. Is there any age where we decide we don’t like colour, fun, experimentation and mental stimulation? Or do we decide that adults have to be sensible? : "I’ve been in other adults homes before, and they do it like this, so I suppose I better as well". It seems that many are simply cosplaying at being an adult/adulting. Or put simply; adopting somebody else’s idea of what a respectable and serious adult does and how they decorate their home. And its not just down to what colour of paints are available off the shelf at B&Q. There ARE lots of bright colours there. Believe me, I freakin’ own them!
It reminds me of that turn of the century show on MTV; ‘Cribs’. Which was a show that had celebs (usually musicians….obvs!) showing us around their home, or ‘Crib’. Fairly frequently there was a rapper, and (to my mind anyway) its like they all hired the same stylist, or used the exact same template. Again, it was complete cosplay. As in "I’m a rich rapper, I better decorate my disgustingly huge house like a rich rapper". Stylistically this was the opposite of the ‘cosplaying adulting’ idea. In that it wasn’t safe. It was all bling and faux opulence, marble staircase, an inexplicable entrance water feature and gold galore. Although oddly the colour scheme was often the same as the pretending to be adults camp; lots of white….as for some reason rappers seem to love this colour. Or at least they did back then. Also, Snoop had an actual Starbucks espresso machine in his kitchen, which was kind of cool.
Again I was struck by the same pondering; do/did they actually like this look? Or was it that they were a successful/rich rapper and this is how successful/rich rapper had their Cribs looking. Although this argument is perhaps skewed slightly by the added factor of being in the public eye; image. In the rapping community culture this would likely be about showing wealth, power, success etc. Thus all the gold, opulence and other bling. But (based on no information whatsoever) I suspect that the latter was a secondary factor.
And this brings me onto exhibit (or should I say Xzibit?!) B. The leader of the free world; The Tangerine Scream himself…Donald Trump. Nobody knows more about big beautiful interiors, believe me. He has taken the White House and made it bigly, more beautiful and considerably more gold. Nobody ever saw something so beautiful and tremendous. Anyway, I digress.
Donny might be the ultimate example of decorating for what you think someone of your status is supposed to look like. Compare the widely circulated before and after pictures of the Oval Office. Before, it looked much as you would expect the office of a world leader to look: formal, traditional and serious. Fair enough. Proper serious adult stuff goes on in there, its not a gay nightclub. Now its gold on top of gold, with marble, trophies, plaques and ornaments fighting for attention. What interests me is not simply that I think it looks hideous. The room seems to be performing a job. Every surface is trying to communicate wealth, importance and power. Which is odd when you consider that the Oval Office is already one of the most symbolically powerful rooms on earth. Why does it still need to tell us that its occupant is powerful?
It is the same instinct I saw in some of those old Cribs houses, just taken to its imperial conclusion. What does a hugely rich and powerful man’s room look like? Apparently, a bit like a Roman emperor won the lottery. I’ve got no idea so I’m going to make it up…its cost approximately $10 Gazillion to make the white house look like this. And the most stunning thing of all is that he did it like this to show wealth, spent a not so small fortune, and still managed to make it look cheap. Well done Donny!
So in a very long, bafflingly Trump bashing roundabout way, what I'm really asking is: if nobody else ever saw this room, would I still choose it? Take away Instagram, resale value, what your parents would think, what the neighbours have done and whatever Homes & Gardens currently says is tasteful. Would you still want the grey kitchen? Maybe you would. Brilliant. But maybe there's also a part of you that still wants the ridiculous lamp, the pink ceiling, the swing in the living room or the secret door you wanted when you were ten.
I'm not suggesting everyone should make their house look like mine. Plenty of people would describe my taste as childish, immature or just plain awful, and that's completely fine. But perhaps childish isn't always the insult we think it is. Children are very good at knowing whether something delights them. They haven't yet learnt to worry whether a fireman's pole is tasteful.
Maybe becoming an adult shouldn't mean finally getting the freedom to create what ever home you want, then immediately using that freedom to recreate somebody else's.
